MM2H - how did you find out about it?
Dec 19th 2014, 5:03 am
#1
...............
Thread Starter
Joined: Feb 2009
Location: Far North Queensland
Posts: 17,625
MM2H - how did you find out about it?
I've got a few new topics to start up which have been inspired by Rashid's research.... so thanks Rashid, for the ideas.
I think it's good to discuss on open forum. Rashid can learn about what folks think. And newbies can learn how current MM2Hers have gone about things. It's a win-win combination
So...how did you find out about the MM2H programme?
I knew a little bit about the programme when I was living and working in Singapore (2005 to 2007). We had to get out of Singapore in a hurry at end of 2007 as we had some visa issues there, and we decided on early retirement to a cheaper country.
At the time, we were running around like chickens with no heads, as our business was doing really well, so no time to do thorough research.
The Malaysian MM2H programme looked like a serious retirement option but, at that time, we hadn't found anywhere in Malaysia that we liked. We'd only been to KL and Kuching and Langkawi and none of those places appealed to us.
We also needed a retirement visa in a hurry, so Thailand was our first option, and we moved to Phuket at end of 2007.
By about 2008, we were pretty fed up with Thailand already. Then in retirement, we had all the time in the world to research new options. We stumbled across the my2home forum and did some reading up.
We decided to take a look at Penang. I think we did about 5 trips in total and we liked it there. So we applied for the visa, got it, and moved to Penang in August 2010. We are still here
I think it's good to discuss on open forum. Rashid can learn about what folks think. And newbies can learn how current MM2Hers have gone about things. It's a win-win combination
So...how did you find out about the MM2H programme?
I knew a little bit about the programme when I was living and working in Singapore (2005 to 2007). We had to get out of Singapore in a hurry at end of 2007 as we had some visa issues there, and we decided on early retirement to a cheaper country.
At the time, we were running around like chickens with no heads, as our business was doing really well, so no time to do thorough research.
The Malaysian MM2H programme looked like a serious retirement option but, at that time, we hadn't found anywhere in Malaysia that we liked. We'd only been to KL and Kuching and Langkawi and none of those places appealed to us.
We also needed a retirement visa in a hurry, so Thailand was our first option, and we moved to Phuket at end of 2007.
By about 2008, we were pretty fed up with Thailand already. Then in retirement, we had all the time in the world to research new options. We stumbled across the my2home forum and did some reading up.
We decided to take a look at Penang. I think we did about 5 trips in total and we liked it there. So we applied for the visa, got it, and moved to Penang in August 2010. We are still here
Dec 19th 2014, 10:11 am
#2
BE Enthusiast
Joined: Sep 2014
Location: Penang
Posts: 516
Re: MM2H - how did you find out about it?
We new nothing about MM2H and were focused on retiring to Thailand as it is a country we know well and already have friends there. But 12 months ago we made the first steps towards finding out in detail the ins and outs of Thai retirement visas and property ownership. What we gleaned was very off putting and the thought of living on the shady side of the law did not appeal even though were had been assured by a very dodgy agent that it was fine because everyone does it.
So we went through the UK Double Taxation Digest looking for countries that would not result in higher taxation than I would suffer in the UK and ideally would only tax investment income on the remittence basis. We then drew up a list of lifestyle factors that were important to us and scored each of the countries in our list. Taking the top 5 we then researched visas, cost of living and expat reviews and got the list down to three. One thing we really want to do in our early years of retirement is travel and explore more of S.E. Asia and visit New Zealand. From our shortlist only Malaysia fitted the last criteria. During the visa research we found out about MM2H from the government web site and it was one of the best that we were able to find.
We travelled down through Malaysia in the summer spending a couple of days at various locations en-route and Penang seemed to be a good place to retire with a large expat community so that we would be able to build a social group quickly. We will be back in Penang in January for a month to make sure it really does fit the bill and if all goes well that should just about coincide with getting my provisional offer.
So we went through the UK Double Taxation Digest looking for countries that would not result in higher taxation than I would suffer in the UK and ideally would only tax investment income on the remittence basis. We then drew up a list of lifestyle factors that were important to us and scored each of the countries in our list. Taking the top 5 we then researched visas, cost of living and expat reviews and got the list down to three. One thing we really want to do in our early years of retirement is travel and explore more of S.E. Asia and visit New Zealand. From our shortlist only Malaysia fitted the last criteria. During the visa research we found out about MM2H from the government web site and it was one of the best that we were able to find.
We travelled down through Malaysia in the summer spending a couple of days at various locations en-route and Penang seemed to be a good place to retire with a large expat community so that we would be able to build a social group quickly. We will be back in Penang in January for a month to make sure it really does fit the bill and if all goes well that should just about coincide with getting my provisional offer.
